From the perspective of an average man living an unspectacular and not supremely well-informed life, the experiment of communism was a failure. With the possible exception of Cuba (most of whose woes were caused directly by the disgusting, anti-humanitarian policies of successive American governments), communism has never really delivered what the idea promised. Strangely enough, Star Trek's altruistic society would seem to be the embodiment of shared wealth and resources, and has been embraced warmly by millions upon millions of devotees, but in the real world, where the mechanics of the system have to actually work in real time, the exercise has not, on the whole, been a positive one. Indeed, communism as it has been practised is generally perceived among the nations of the west to be an embodiment of evil. Even the word 'communism' has fallen out of use, replaced by one dripping with the same kind of stigma: socialism.

This stigma has been attached by generation of right wing politicians, apparently short on intelligence and long on ignorance and greed. Capitalism is the darling of the right and so-called 'centre-right' parties of the richest developed nations. The problem is, that doesn't work very well either - unless, of course, you happen to be occupying the privilege-laden upper branches of the economic tree. from up there, everything looks rosy, and since the people who own and control most of our international media corporations tend to sit in the very highest velvet-lined branches, they are more than happy to keep telling the rest of us how lucky we all are, and how nice life really is for us. It's all lies, of course - blatant, premeditated lies. I'll take the majority of us for an example: anyone who needs to work to feed their family is not having anything like as nice a life as those who never have to worry about such things. Simple.

The disgusting, immoral nature of the inequality of wealth distribution (together with the perpetuated, laughable lie that wealth 'trickles down' from the top) is the shame of our modern developed societies. It is the hidden truth which must not be spoken of. Hence the vilification of one particular man in the British media over the last twelve months or so.

Jeremy Corbyn - the man elected to be the left-wing Labour Party leader twice in a year - has undergone a sustained barrage of blatant attacks and general, more subtle bias ever since he took office. I've never seen anything like it - although I'm prepared to admit that I wasn't truly aware of media coverage until I was an adolescent. What's made the difference, I think, has been the truly blatant nature of the attacks against him, and the obvious bias against him - both in terms of his opposition to the sitting government (one of the most extreme right-wing governments ever to hold office), or in regard to the challenges to his leadership of his political party. Truly, it's been breathtaking.

Jeremy - alongside the kinds of flaws that you or I may share with him - you see, has a major problem. He's an old-fashioned socialist. He's a man with a belief in wealth distribution, in a welfare state (if that term isn't too long in the tooth), and in a system of government which does not protect wealth and privilege at the cost of the less wealthy and vulnerable. This makes him the antichrist in the eyes of most of the UK media outlets, although social media seems to tell a different story. The media have been very quiet about the crushing nature of his two victories in successive leadership races, and in particular about how party membership is now at record levels, an increase which began with his initial bid for the leader's role. Major figures in his own party have betrayed him and the party by actively undermining his leadership, and each incident has been seized upon by the media with barely-concealed glee, while progress has been either entirely ignored or grudgingly relegated to side stories. The list of obvious biased reporting/editing is too long to go into here, but it has been - even from this distance - simply staggering.

The blatant arrogance of this alarms me. It speaks of a lack of care about what the electorate thinks or feels. It speaks of an unstoppable machine rolling along doing whatever it wishes with scant or no regard for the mandate (or lack of) for doing so. It speaks of a society beginning to unravel as the needs of a few begin to utterly override the needs of the rest of us. It worries me, in particular with regard to the future of my children and their children.

What are we creating for them? Scratch that - what are the faceless Oligarchs creating fro them? Since they don't give a shit about anyone else, I think we should ALL be worried. Very worried.

The evolution of our western society continues apace. This, I feel, is an act of extreme rudeness, since in doing so, it is leaving this particular old curmudgeon behind. What's more, as a lifelong non-smoker, I don't even have the luxury of enjoying the aroma of burning pipe tobacco as the world encircles me in an increasingly frenetic blur. Indeed, my only consolation is that so much that fills the airwaves and the internet ether - and I am choosing my words carefully for a change - is entirely meaningless or at least inconsequential to the point of making me want to remove my own spleen and throw it at the computer screen in frustration.

The latest example of this (and which has spurred me to comment today) is the unbelievable fuss and attention being lavished upon a certain celebrity couple's divorce. I doubt that you will need any more information to know what I'm talking about -- unless, of course, you've freshly emerged from spending a few days underneath a large rock somewhere in the remotest part of Norway. If you are in that situation, then you should thank me for not going any further on the details.

The headline I saw today began with 'Everything you need to know about...'. This immediately made me wonder just how much I needed to know on the subject. I came up with an answer within a nanosecond: zero. I then asked myself just how much I wanted to know on the subject. The internal response was the same. I am, then, at a disadvantage here, because I struggle to understand why anyone would want to know about such things, let alone actually feel that they needed more details. Yet this is the kind of useless, pointless fluff which seems to fill the internet news pages these days - and what a stark comment this is upon the avaricious appetite of the public when it comes to peering into the lives of people they envy.

The fact that two famous people have had enough of one another is a news item only because their pairing-up some years ago was an equally dismal headline event. That, I think, is where it should end, but symptomatically, the media delving seems to be continuing, and I find myself dodging stories which have my spleen ducking for cover behind my ribs (it knows, you see).

I think that there is an answer; there is a way to deal with the urge to find out about - and thoroughly revel in - all the details of famous people's private lives:

Get a life.

Really: get a life.

Go away now, and get a fucking life.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I must leave the computer to go and get my regular copy of 'Hello!' magazine...

It's interesting to see the Paralympics under way in a city which seems to venerate magazine-style standards of beauty and human perfection. I've always associated Rio with lithe (even nubile) bodies - not that I've ever been there, but the traditional portrayal of the place has always been a lifestyle of sun, sand, sea and...well, you get the picture.

​This year I probably watched the Olympic Games less than I ever have before. What I did see struck me as rather clinical, and less emotional than I remember former games being. Many of the gold medal winners didn't seem to be quite as pleased as I thought they might be. I grew up with sporting superstars who were - in theory at least - amateurs. They were dedicated (possibly obsessed) people with a selfish streak a mile wide, but who achieved what they did largely through stubborn determination and a liberal dose of egotistical mania. When they won, they almost exploded with excitement and joy. it was still possible - just - as a kid, to identify with someone who did their training at the local school playing field, or the community gymnasium or swimming pool (even if they had to do so at 4 a.m in order to get the amount of time in the pool that they needed). It was possible to pretend to be those people as we played our games and had our school contests.

Now, the world of athletic sport, just like all the others, is a world of professional competitive machines. In my own favourite sport, for example, a glimpse through the footage of international matches will illustrate the evolution of rugby players from mostly ordinary but large, very tough fellows into enormous, muscle-bound athletes apparently made from Kryptonite. The game has evolved into a much faster, much more impressive sport at the first class level. It's very entertaining to watch, but the people who play the game are no longer the typical sportsman or woman. They too, have become sporting machines, honed for action. I can no longer fantasize about playing alongside such people (it was my pleasure to be humbled on a couple of occasions by playing on the same pitch as international players, and seeing with my own eyes how much of a different league they were in) - I couldn't even get on the pitch as a mascot.

The Paralympics, however, is different. There, I see people who are still, at heart, ordinary. I might pass them on the street and not know of their achievements. Determination, courage and toughness are usually invisible qualities, after all. I can watch such people and think, even now as my beard grows ever more white, that I might have been one of them. It's the attitude to life that is so impressive, the determination to achieve a goal, the grit: these are the qualities that I have always admired in athletes. In relation to such hugely impressive humans, a physical disability is largely irrelevant. In fact, I get much more excited watching a Paralympic victory than I do an Olympic one. Somehow, it's more real. The delight is palpable.

I mean this in the least patronizing sense: Paralympic athletes seem so much more normal, more human than the superbly honed athletic machines which populate the Olympics and every other professional sport these days. They are people with whom I can identify - and the realization of that is surprising, because I am fortunate to have been 'able-bodied' until now. Tomorrow, after all, I may lose that good fortune and become disabled - but I will never, ever become a sporting machine. If I was to meet with the former circumstance, I will have role models to think about; people who demonstrate what is possible in spite of the challenges that life throws in our path. Today, the Paralympics reminds me that people can still be magnificent. It tells me that greatness is all around me, and that much of it is invisible. Most of all, the Paralympics is a lesson to me that those of us who have realized that the nettle is there to be grasped and experienced are the ones who truly live.

I asked the internetweb for a photo which personified evil. This wasn't what I expected, but I can live with it.

I'm a bit of a sucker for nostalgia (note: anyone now using the "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!" joke will shortly be taken outside and given the biggest wedgie of their pathetic lives), in particular photographic documentation of the past. Pictures of important historical moments/figures are of course fascinating to me, but even more enthralling are records which illustrates places I am very familiar with. Since photography itself only has a distressingly short history, sometimes I have to make do with paintings, but they are all subject to artistic licence/sobriety, and it's the printed images that really grab my attention.

A result of this particular weakness (I have a great many, including one for bow-legged women, despite my sainted mother's warnings about such) is that I thoroughly enjoy following a few Facebook pages which showcase old photographs of places that have become integral to my past. It's fun to see how a city/town/rural area has changed - or not - over something like one and a half centuries, and I get a little nerdy thrill out of new images posted by people who are far more obsessed than I with such things.

What I DON'T appreciate, however - how dare they disrupt my smoothly flowing stream of consciousness - is the constant infiltration/hijacking of such pages by people (usually, I have to say, women of a certain age) insisting upon bulldozing a thread - frequently a string of questions and answers about the history of the image and/or whatever it depicts - with the following kinds of posts:

Dorothy Grimsbottom: "I used to live at number 74 when I was a little girl!"

Joan Bumblethumb: "Is that you, Dot?"

Dorothy: "Yes, who's that?"

Harold Purplenose: "I lived at number 26 from 1956 to 1969. Number 25 used to be the only house in the street with white window frames and a yellow door."

Joan: "It's me, Joanie from number 64!"

Peter Womble: "The next street along was where I watched a German bomber drop a stick of bombs on the beach, killing nobody. I'm pretty sure it was a Dornier."

Dorothy: "I don't remember anyone called Joanie, sorry."

Harold: "Number 33 always left the light on all night, as I recall. My mother used to remark upon it."

Joan: "Dot, you might remember me as Ursula. I had a blue dress."

Peter: "Although it might have been a Heinkel."

Harold: "Burned all night it did. Must have cost them a fortune. Mind you, he owned his own company, so..."

Dorothy: "Oh, yes I remember Ursula. I never liked her."

Joan: "I thought you did? We used to play together. Is that why you pulled my hair?"

Peter: "Now I come to think of it, it was a Junkers. Anyway, the main thing is, nobody was hurt."

Harold: "I bet it was that bl**dy (pardon my French) light at number 33 that attracted the Luftwaffe."

Dorothy: "............"

...and so on. And so bloody on...

It's time, I've decided, to fight back. I have therefore decided to launch a campaign of joining such pages under a creative name with the express purpose of engaging such people in the most banal conversations possible about fictitious childhood memories, just to see how long I can keep it going, and with the hope of making their heads explode with false recollections. You know the kind of thing: the time when father O'Reilly spent more than forty five minutes 'having tea and crumpets' with Mrs. Hoolihan on the corner, and with the curtains half closed. Or perhaps the tragic story of how little Morris got his willy caught in his mother's mangle and had to be cut out by the fire brigade. then again, there was that incident when two sheep were found floating upside down in the back yard pond of that family from Pakistan-or-wherever-it-was-it-doesn't-really-matter-they-were-foreign.

I find my fingers automatically steepling, in a decidedly wicked kind of way...I'd ask for help but it sounds like too much fun, so just leave me to it...

Toughest dude out there...but he'll cry if you point out his receding hair line.

I'm old enough to remember a time when discussions were held on a face-to-face basis, or at worst over the telephone (which I have always found to be deeply unsatisfactory by comparison). My memories - selective as they no doubt are, being the product of a flawed and occasionally bewildered mind - are of the principles of argument and discussion including the overriding understanding that if one of the parties said something outrageously stupid or irrational, became threatening, began to use abusive language or in any other way lost the plot, there would very probably be consequences. Consequences ranged from good-natured reposts through irritated rebuttals and on up - in the case of severe transgressions - to fisticuffs, bloody noses and ruined dress shirts. This basic understanding of the laws of human interaction tended to reduce the latter, unfortunate incidents - at least between sober, reasonable homo sapiens - to a frequency best described as rare. Prevention was better than correction.

​The internet - and for me in particular, Facebook (I have never been a website 'forum' kind of person) - has created a new and unpleasant kind of interaction. Most of us will have experienced - as I have again today - an online conversation wherein disagreement lurches from a polite exchange of opinions straight into abusive name-calling. I have three internal responses to such behaviour. The first, if I'm honest, is an unevolved rush of adrenalin and a desire to rip something - perhaps a telephone directory in half, or more likely, a head from a pair of shoulders. The second response, arriving on the heels of the first, is a need for sardonic laughter, driven by the thought of the person responsible for abusing me having the opportunity to repeat what they have typed - verbally, and three feet from my face. There would, you see, be consequences which I am sure we would both wish to avoid in the real world. The third internal response I experience is a feeling of sadness; an emerging generation has a hill to climb.

​Perhaps I'm wrong; it may be a mountain. The new humans - at least those with easy access to technology - are losing their resilience. They're losing any toughness that has been built up over centuries of privation, of war, of suffering and hardship. Those negatives still exist for billions, of course, but the society I live in seems to be developing - I'd say 'devolving', but I don't see how humanity would still be here if we'd ever been like this during our evolutionary journey - into an increasingly whiney, plaintive and frankly feeble mass of pathetic arseholes. Yes, there are people out there with brutal, unacceptable and bizarre perspectives upon the world which need to be kept where they belong (on the fringes), but these days we seem to be overrun by a groundswell of the 'OMG' generation, where almost anything can be shocking, weird, upsetting, offensive and worst of all: gross.

​An entire generation seems to be turning into 'The Overwhelmed', at a time when, ironically, life in western society has never been more easy. Children - our most impressionable companions - are brainwashed by schools to perceive their academic career as difficult and impossibly stressful and encouraged by politicized teachers to feel pressurized. There is talk in our media today of school pupils in our area experiencing the 'anxiety' of returning to school. Please. Emotionally dumbing down to the level of our society's least resilient will have the effect of weakening emotional strength throughout our society. Even mild discomfort is to be avoided at all costs, as if it were some insurmountable horror. Modern, techno-cossetted humans are becoming emotional cripples, and they love it.

The internet has created a world for the west in particular (no I'm not excluding you, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) where an expression of shock or fear or being 'grossed out' is desirable because it garners attention. Drama is the thing: being a victim is the thing to be - and running a close second is being the person with the most politically correct outraged response. There are no longer any consequences for stupid reactions to everyday events. Drama wins out in the media and on social media. Overreacting rules.

​At a personal level we have the internet morons (Homo Internetiens) who speak without any fear of having to back up their insults or of facing any meaningful consequences for doing so. The recent Pokémon GO craze must have created a few worrying moments for such people, I suspect. They are life's failures, and in an earlier time, they would have never had a public voice with which to cause other people discomfort. On a macro scale, however, our access to instant global communication threatens to transform a large section of society into frightened, easily disrupted quivering lumps of perceived suffering, muttering "Oh my God" repeatedly to themselves as they rock backwards and forwards on their (unexpectedly delayed) train seat. Such people are feeble, of course, until a voice in the wilderness pipes up to disagree - and then watch the previously 'freaked out' mob immediately descend en masse (strength in numbers, you see: it precludes any need for reasoned argument or critical thinking) upon the lone victim in order to silence him or her. Homo Internetiens will conquer all before more resilient humans (familiar and entirely comfortable with the concept of just getting on with life and making stuff happen) from less wealthy societies arrive to kick the snot out of them.

It's a worry. I'm buying an island and a shotgun - or maybe just a scary clown mask will do the job?